Fools! That so often here
Happiness mocked our prayer,
I think, might make us fear
A like event elsewhere;
Make us not fly to dreams, but moderate desire.
And yet, for those who know
Themselves, who wisely take
Their way through life, and bow
To what they cannot break,
Why should I say that life need yield but moderate bliss?
Shall we, with temper spoiled,
Health sapped by living ill,
And judgment all embroiled
By sadness and self-will,—
Shall we judge what for man is not true bliss or is?
Is it so small a thing
To have enjoyed the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes,—
That we must feign a bliss
Of doubtful future date,
And, while we dream on this,
Lose all our present state,
And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?
Not much, I know, you prize
What pleasures may be had,
Who look on life with eyes
Estranged, like mine, and sad;
And yet the village-churl feels the truth more than you;
Who’s loath to leave this life
Which to him little yields,—
His hard-tasked sunburnt wife,
His often-labored fields,
The boors with whom he talked, the country-spots he knew.
But thou, because thou hear’st
Men scoff at heaven and fate,
Because the gods thou fear’st
Fail to make blest thy state,
Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are!
I say: Fear not! Life still
Leaves human effort scope.
But, since life teems with ill,
Nurse no extravagant hope;
Because thou must not dream, thou need’st not then despair!